


Martha's Sons

by MagpieChristine



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Book 7: An Echo in the Bone, Canon Compliant, Gen, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 13:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15220139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieChristine/pseuds/MagpieChristine
Summary: Philosophy from Bree and Roger with Kipling's help. Spoilers for Book 6, minor spoilers for Book 7.





	Martha's Sons

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of cheesy, I can't get the dialogue to sound reasonable. Aside from that, my attempts at dialect are always awful. I don't know if I over did the Scots Leid, under did it, or just was wildly inconsistent. Apologies no matter which it is.
> 
> Links to referenced works are at the end

Roger looked up from the notes he was making for the presentation – he hesitated to call it a class – he was going to be giving on the Gàidhlig. Brianna had, at some point, left a cup of tea for him, and sipped it, discovering that it still had some warmth.

“They are carried by Martha’s sons” he said absently.

Brianna looked up from where she was proofreading the typed version of a report she needed to file. So absorbed in his planning had Roger been that he hadn’t even realised he wasn’t alone in the room. “What was that?”

“Just a bit of Kipling. I found the tea.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I will confess to being excessively American, but I fail to see how those two are connected. Is there a ceremonial recitation of Kipling before drinking tea that I have somehow missed until now?”

Roger laughed as he got up and stretched, not coincidentally moving closer to Brianna at the same time.

“I was just thanking ye. It’s from “The Sons of Martha”. You know – hmmm… ‘they cast their burdens upon…’ nae, that’s no’ it. Let me see.” Roger wandered over to the long shelves of books, and pulled down a volume of Kipling’s poems. “Aha. Here we go. I had it wrong. “'They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons’”

“I still have no idea what any of this has to do with tea.”

“It’s a reference to the story of Martha and Mary in Luke’s gospel. I think ye qualify as one of Martha’s sons. In fact,” he said, skimming the poem, “I would say this applies to yer engineering work too, not just the fact that ye do such a bonnie job of keeping me fed.”

“I should think that there’s a small difference between me and a ‘son’.”

“Vive la difference,” Roger replied by reflex “but I do think it applies. The poor man had never heard of women’s lib, cut him some slack. D’ye want to hear the poem?”

Brianna couldn’t decide whether to smack him for the crudeness, or to kiss him for the same, so she settled for the poem instead.

> “'The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;  
>  But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.   
> And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,   
> Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.’”

As he continued reading, Roger surreptitiously watched Brianna’s face above the edge of the page. Her face kept the carefully blank expression she had inherited from her father, but as the poem went on her eyes developed a tell-tale shine. When he finished, and laid the book aside, Roger gathered her in his arms.

“I know I don’t always do a good job of appreciating yer work, but I ken it’s important. And ye need have no fear that this son of Mary will forget the value of having electric lights.”

Brianna turned her head up for a kiss, and blinked away the tears in her eyes.

“You managed fine without them before” she said, half in challenge, half in jest. Roger answered seriously.

“That’s part of why I appreciate them sae much now. They are such a luxury to me, in a way they never could have been before we went back. Look at something like this” and he gestured to his scattered notes. “As much as there was nae time during the day, every time I wanted to work after dark, I had to question if it was worth the candle. And even if it was, I was squinting in the dark. This level of light is amazing. Besides, it lets me see ye better.” Roger stepped back to the extent that he could without letting go of Brianna, and looked at her with an expression that made it quite clear that his favourite parts were ones that weren’t currently visible, light or no. Brianna pulled him back, and kissed him soundly, before helping him take advantage of the light.

* * *

“I never liked that story as a child.”

Roger had just reached the pleasant state right before falling asleep, where you are not quite certain whether you’re awake or asleep, so he fumbled around in his brain a minute before replying to Brianna’s statement. “Which story then?”

“Mary and Martha. I always thought it was unfair that Jesus scolded Mary, when she was just trying to be hospitable. Because he didn’t just say ‘let Martha listen’, he said that Martha was doing something better than Mary was. I was young enough to think that meant that spending time doing things like making dinner was a bad thing to do.

“Granted,” Bree continued thoughtfully, “the poem really does nothing to counter that interpretation. Kipling might be mightily praising the work of the careful souls, but in the end, he says it’s a punishment.”

“Well then, I’m sure he’d find agreement with Hiram Crombie. They both say that ye should be taking care of me, and smoothing my road, and that it’s a punishment. At least Kipling says it’s because of who ye are, and not just because ye’re a woman. That’s somewhat better, aye?”

Brianna rolled up on her arm and glared at what she was pretty sure was him, despite the dark. Feeling her movement through the mattress, Roger regretted his little joke.

“Rather than Kipling, how about Paul as a guide. How there are many parts in one body? Some people may value the work of a hand more than that of a foot, or say that being a spleen is a punishment, but can you actually say that one is better than another?”

“Didn’t Saint Paul himself do so? Something about there being more honour to the parts that weren’t as good?”

“Aye, he did, but ye cannae say that ye were made the way ye were – that ye were made a foot and no’ a hand – as a punishment then. The analogy says that it’s a balance, ken? And the purpose was unity, that all may be valued”

Brianna gave what was developing into a quite respectable Scottish “mmmmphmm” and lay back down. “Just be sure you tie the laces on the shoes well, hand. I wouldn’t want them to fall off.”

At this Roger laughed outright. “Of course not, hen.” He rolled over and threw his arm over her. She nuzzled her head under his chin, and they both lay quietly, drifting in to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The text of the story of Mary and Martha can be found in the “background notes” link at the bottom of the linked page for the poem. http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_martha.htm  
> The text of the referenced portion of the letters of Paul that Roger & Bree discuss in bed follows here.
> 
> "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  
>  "Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it."
> 
> 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 NRSV


End file.
